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She's 23. Pregnant. And crowdfunding her abortion.

woman crowdfunding abortion
Bailey. (Image: GoFundMe).

 

 

Bailey is a 23-year-old American woman who can’t afford an abortion.

The Arizona woman, who’s now around 20 weeks pregnant, doesn’t get access to free or subsidised healthcare. So she’s sought funds via unconventional means — a crowdfunding page to raise US$2500 for the procedure.

Originally called the ‘Stop Bailey From Breeding Fund’, the GoFundMe page explained her reasons for not wanting to have a baby right now.

“Bailey is currently unemployed, completely broke, in debt, and in no position to hold down a job due to severe symptoms of a rough, unplanned and unexpected pregnancy,” the page, which has now been taken down, read.

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Bailey told Vice the page was first set up by her boyfriend, who goes by the name Lücifer Ryzing. (She declined to confirm whether he was the father.)

Bailey told Vice she and Lücifer had opted to crowdfund the procedure because “we’re broke kids who really need to have this abortion, and you see crowdsourcing for all kinds of things”.

“You see it for things like, ‘Help me press this record!’ or ‘Help me pay my rent!’ We saw that Kickstarter that made a bunch of money for the potato salad thing. If people want to donate, they can, which is a lot easier than going and asking people,” she said.

“I’m hoping people will (donate), but it’s also totally fine if people don’t… It’s more time-sensitive than some of the other things that you see,” she said.

Bailey said she’s received a number of online threats since the page went live and has seen online “threads of 200 or 400 comments that are really hateful, or violent, or threatening”.

“I’ve had a few people threaten to dox me, log my IP address, and find out where I live [so they can] come hurt me in some way, or come hurt Lüci,” she said.

“There have been moments when I almost had a panic attack or just was really, really taken aback at what kind of responses we’ve gotten: how many assumptions, how many projections,” she said.

“I guess how angry it makes people that this is something that we’re trying to do.”

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